GOP plan to sell more than 3,200 square miles of federal lands is found to violate Senate rules- Matthew Daly, Associated Press
A plan to sell more than 3,200 square miles (8,300 square kilometers) of federal lands has been ruled out of Republicans’ big tax and spending cut bill after the Senate parliamentarian determined the proposal by Senate Energy Chairman Mike Lee would violate the chamber’s rules.
Lee, a Utah Republican, has proposed selling millions of acres of public lands in the West to states or other entities for use as housing or infrastructure. The plan would revive a longtime ambition of Western conservatives to cede lands to local control after a similar proposal failed in the House earlier this year.
The proposal received a mixed reception Monday from the governors of Western states. New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, called it problematic in her state because of the close relationship residents have with public lands.
Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon, a Republican, voiced qualified support.
“On a piece-by-piece basis where states have the opportunity to craft policies that make sense ... we can actually allow for some responsible growth in areas with communities that are landlocked at this point,” he said at a news conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where the Western Governors’ Association was meeting.
Lee, in a post on X Monday night, said he would keep trying.
“Housing prices are crushing families and keeping young Americans from living where they grew up. We need to change that,'' he wrote, adding that a revised plan would remove all U.S. Forest Service land from possible sale. Sales of sites controlled by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management would be significantly reduced, Lee said, so that only land within 5 miles of population centers could be sold.
Environmental advocates celebrated the ruling late Monday by Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough, but cautioned that Lee's proposal was far from dead.
“This is a victory for the American public, who were loud and clear: Public lands belong in public hands, for current and future generations alike,'' said Tracy Stone-Manning, president of The Wilderness Society. “Our public lands are not for sale.”
Carrie Besnette Hauser, president and CEO of the nonprofit Trust for Public Land, called the procedural ruling in the Senate “an important victory in the fight to protect America’s public lands from short-sighted proposals that would have undermined decades of bipartisan work to protect, steward and expand access to the places we all share.”
“But make no mistake: this threat is far from over,” Hauser added. “Efforts to dismantle our public lands continue, and we must remain vigilant as proposals now under consideration," including plans to roll back the bipartisan Great American Outdoors Act and cut funding for land and water conservation, make their way through Congress, she said.
MacDonough, the Senate parliamentarian, also ruled out a host of other Republican-led provisions Monday night, including construction of a mining road in Alaska and changes to speed permitting of oil and gas leases on federal lands.
While the parliamentarian’s rulings are advisory, they are rarely, if ever, ignored. Lawmakers are using a budget reconciliation process to bypass the Senate filibuster to pass President Donald Trump’s tax-cut package by a self-imposed July Fourth deadline.
Lee's plan revealed sharp disagreement among Republicans who support wholesale transfers of federal property to spur development and generate revenue, and other lawmakers who are staunchly opposed.
Land in 11 Western states from Alaska to New Mexico would be eligible for sale. Montana was carved out of the proposal after lawmakers there objected. In states such as Utah and Nevada, the government controls the vast majority of lands, protecting them from potential exploitation but hindering growth.
"Washington has proven time and again it can’t manage this land. This bill puts it in better hands,” Lee said in announcing the plan.
Housing advocates have cautioned that federal land is not universally suitable for affordable housing. Some of the parcels up for sale in Utah and Nevada under a House proposal were far from developed areas.
New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich, the ranking Democrat on the energy committee, said Lee's plan would exclude Americans from places where they fish, hunt and camp.
“I don’t think it’s clear that we would even get substantial housing as a result of this,” Heinrich said earlier this month. “What I know would happen is people would lose access to places they know and care about and that drive our Western economies.”
Lawsuit challenges billions of dollars in Trump administration funding cuts- Michael Casey, Associated Press
Attorneys general from more than 20 states and Washington, D.C. filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday challenging billions of dollars in funding cuts made by the Trump administration that would fund everything from crime prevention to food security to scientific research.
The lawsuit filed in Boston is asking a judge to limit the Trump administration from relying on an obscure clause in the federal regulation to cut grants that don’t align with its priorities. Since January, the lawsuit argues that the administration has used that clause to cancel entire programs and thousands of grants that had been previously awarded to states and grantees.
“Defendants’ decision to invoke the Clause to terminate grants based on changed agency priorities is unlawful several times over,” the plaintiffs argued. “The rulemaking history of the Clause makes plain that the (Office of Management and Budget) intended for the Clause to permit terminations in only limited circumstances and provides no support for a broad power to terminate grants on a whim based on newly identified agency priorities.”
The lawsuit argues the Trump administration has used the clause for the basis of a “slash-and-burn campaign” to cut federal grants.
“Defendants have terminated thousands of grant awards made to Plaintiffs, pulling the rug out from under the States, and taking away critical federal funding on which States and their residents rely for essential programs,” the lawsuit added.
Rhode Island Attorney General Neronha said this lawsuit was just one of several the coalition of mostly Democratic states have filed over funding cuts. For the most part, they have largely succeeded in a string of legal victories to temporarily halt cuts.
This one, though, may be the broadest challenge to those funding cuts.
“It’s no secret that this President has gone to great lengths to intercept federal funding to the states, but what may be lesser known is how the Trump Administration is attempting to justify their unlawful actions,” Neronha said in a statement. “Nearly every lawsuit this coalition of Democratic attorneys general has filed against the Administration is related to its unlawful and flagrant attempts to rob Americans of basic programs and services upon which they rely. Most often, this comes in the form of illegal federal funding cuts, which the Administration attempts to justify via a so-called ‘agency priorities clause."
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said the lawsuit aimed to stop funding cuts he described as indiscriminate and illegal.
“There is no ‘because I don’t like you’ or ‘because I don’t feel like it anymore’ defunding clause in federal law that allows the President to bypass Congress on a whim," Tong said in a statement. “Since his first minutes in office, Trump has unilaterally defunded our police, our schools, our healthcare, and more. He can’t do that, and that’s why over and over again we have blocked him in court and won back our funding.”
The lawsuit argues that the OMB promulgated the use of the clause in question to justify the cuts. The clause in question, according to the lawsuit, refers to five words that say federal agents can terminate grants if the award "no longer effectuates the program goals or agency priorities.”
“The Trump Administration has claimed that five words in this Clause—'no longer effectuates . . . agency priorities'—provide federal agencies with virtually unfettered authority to withhold federal funding any time they no longer wish to support the programs for which Congress has appropriated funding,” the lawsuit said.
US Education Secretary defends resumption of student loan collections in NM speech - Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
Speaking at the Western Governors’ Association meeting in Santa Fe on Monday, United States Education Secretary Linda McMahon defended her agency’s return to collecting student loan payments from millions of borrowers, calling the pandemic-era pause “confusing” for students and their parents.
On May 5, the Education Department announced it would resume federal student loan collections after President Joe Biden’s administration paused them in March 2020. In a news release, McMahon said the resumption of collections meant that, “American taxpayers will no longer be forced to serve as collateral for irresponsible student loan policies.”
During her keynote address, McMahon said the Education Department had already received about $200 million in payments. The payments represent the first collection in more than five years and come after the Supreme Court stymied Biden’s efforts to forgive billions in student loan debt during his presidency.
McMahon said times have changed since March 2020, and resumption of collections, among other benefits, eliminates confusion borrowers face about whether and when to repay their loans with potential loan forgiveness hanging over their heads.
“One father told me: He said, ‘You know, my kids were covered under an educational trust fund that I set up for them, but I wasn’t sure that I wanted to pay out that money, because if it was going to be forgiven, was that short changing them in the long run?’” she said.
More than 10% of New Mexicans have student loan debt, according to EducationData.org, which says that 226,000 New Mexicans in 2024 had an average debt of $34,071.
A spokesperson for the New Mexico Higher Education Department did not respond to a request for comment from Source New Mexico about McMahon’s comments.
In addition to her comments on student loans, McMahon defended President Donald Trump’s efforts to pare back the Education Department, saying she does not see what he’s doing as a “cut to education” but, rather, a means of reducing bureaucracy and empowering states to take the lead in their students’ education.
During her speech, protesters outside the Eldorado Hotel could be heard shouting “Not for sale! Not for sale!” More than 1,000 people protested the budget reconciliation bill making its way through the United States Senate that would mandate the sale of up to 3 million acres of federal public lands.
The chants echoing through the meeting hall prompted New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham to explain the reasoning behind the protests and offer an apology “for the noise, [but] don’t apologize for community engagement.”
Albuquerque Public Schools will ask voters to approve $350 million in GO bonds. Here’s what that could fund- Noah Alcala Bach, Albuquerque Journal
Albuquerque Public Schools will be banking on voters this November to approve $350 million in general obligation bonds so it can take on major projects, improve cooling on campuses, complete construction projects in the face of skyrocketing costs and fund three new facilities tailored to student needs amid declining enrollment.
Part of that proposed bond package, if approved, will go to projects voters approved in previous years that have increased in cost, as $173 million would be allocated to “project budget shortfalls” across 13 campuses.
In 2019, the construction cost per square foot for the district averaged around $260.90; now, it’s priced at $542.95 and may continue to increase. The rise is due to supply chain issues, increased costs of building materials, labor shortages coupled with rising wages for construction workers and uncertainty around tariffs, according to Kizito Wijenje, executive director of the district’s capital master plan.
“You don’t wait till all the eggs are in one basket to start a project; you’ll never start anything, and inflation will kill you,” Wijenje said. “Our motto is promises made, promises kept.”
When it comes to the other improvements the district hopes to make, $40.2 million will be used to add refrigerant cooling to 20 campuses — five middle schools, 14 elementary schools and one alternative high school. The campuses selected either had the oldest or poorest-functioning cooling systems, according to Wijenje, who explained the selection process as “worst comes first.”
“The thing that I hear most about from the community is, honestly, HVAC air conditioning,” APS board President Danielle Gonzales said. “I think everyone knows that kids can’t learn unless they feel safe and comfortable, and that’s a big part of the air conditioning.”
The other large category the district will request funding for is $70.4 million for “right-sizing priorities,” which include building a special needs facility on the city’s West Side, a facility for career and technical education training and a classroom block at Taylor Middle School.
In December, the APS board voted to close Taft Middle School, which had about 200 students, according to the district’s dashboard. The majority of those students will go to Taylor Middle School.
To accommodate those students, the district plans to use a $30 million classroom block, and Wijenje describes it as a cost-saving measure since the cost to renovate Taft would be more than making improvements at Taylor.
About $15 million for “right-sizing” will be used for a new special needs education facility — the district doesn’t have such a campus west of the Rio Grande.
As for the technical education training facility, the district officials said it could alleviate increasing labor costs caused by labor shortages by training students who could someday take on contracting jobs. APS will spend $25.4 million on the facility.
“The idea is, there’s such a shortage everywhere, and so you’ve got to start somewhere,” APS spokesperson Martin Salazar said. “The idea here is, it’s a win-win; you basically get students, expose them to these various careers, get them started. They’re able to graduate, to go hit the ground running.”
In recent years, voters have consistently supported APS bonds, except for a February 2019 vote when they rejected them. However, the district put the items on the November 2019 ballot, and they passed. If voters don’t pass the bonds this November, Wijenje said the district will “make do with what we’ve got.”
“We’ll nickel and dime and use duct tape, but again, that’s what you get. The conditions will not be optimal,” he said. “Your taxes will go down, but you’re not going to be paying for much-needed services for your community.”
Trump administration plans to rescind rule blocking logging on national forest lands — Morgan Lee, Becky Bohrer, Associated Press
The Trump administration plans to rescind a nearly quarter-century-old rule that blocked logging on national forest lands, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced Monday.
The roadless rule adopted in the last days of Bill Clinton's presidency in 2001 long has chafed Republican lawmakers, especially in the West where national forests sprawl across vast, mountainous terrain and the logging industry has waned.
The rule impeded road construction and "responsible timber production" that would have helped reduce the risk of major wildfires, Rollins said at the annual meeting of the Western Governors Association.
"This move opens a new era of consistency and sustainability for our nation's forests," Rollins said.
Scientists say that worsening wildfires are driven by a combination of climate change that warms and dries out forests, less logging and decades of fire suppression that has allowed fuels to build up.
The roadless rule has affected 30% of national forest lands nationwide, or about 59 million acres (24 million hectares), according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the agency over the Forest Service.
State roadless-area rules in Idaho and Colorado supersede the boundaries of the 2001 roadless rule, according to the USDA, meaning not all national forest land would be affected by a rescission.
Rollins' announcement Monday was a first step in a process to rescind the roadless rule to be followed by a formal notice in coming weeks, the Agriculture Department said in a statement.
The announcement comes amid recent talk of selling off federal lands in part to improve housing affordability, an idea criticized by Democrats as a public land grab.
Selling public lands drew a mixed reception from governors at the same meeting. They expressed enthusiasm for economic development and worries about curtailing public access to shared lands.
Speaking to a panel of governors and hotel-ballroom audience, Department of Interior Secretary Doug Burgum described a new "era of abundance" on public lands under President Donald Trump's administration in the development of natural resources including energy and critical minerals needed for domestic production of cellphones, computers and vehicles.
Outside the hotel entrance in downtown Santa Fe, several hundred protesters filled the street to denounce efforts that might privatize federal public lands, chanting "not for sale" and carrying signs that read, "This land belongs to you and me" and "keep our public land free for future generations."
On social media, Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy, a Trump ally, called the reversal on roadless areas "another example of President Trump fulfilling his campaign promise to open up resources for responsible development."
The roadless area change meanwhile marks a sharp turnaround from the Biden administration, which far from opening up more areas to timber harvesting sought to do more to restrict logging and protect old-growth forests.
Environmental groups, who want to keep restrictions on logging and road-building for places such as Alaska's Tongass National Forest, criticized the possibility of rolling back the protections.
"Any attempt to revoke it is an attack on the air and water we breathe and drink, abundant recreational opportunities which millions of people enjoy each year, havens for wildlife and critical buffers for communities threatened by increasingly severe wildfire seasons," Josh Hicks, conservation campaigns director at The Wilderness Society, said in a statement on the USDA's plans.
Contrary to what Rollins said about reducing wildfire risk, logging exacerbates climate change and makes wildfires more intense, said Center for Western Priorities political director Rachael Hamby.
"This is nothing more than a massive giveaway to timber companies at the expense of every American and the forests that belong to all of us," Hamby said in a statement.
In Alaska, home to the country's largest national forest, the Tongass, the roadless rule has long been a focus of litigation, with state political leaders supporting an exemption to the rule that they argue impedes economic opportunities.
During the latter part of Trump's first term, the federal government lifted restrictions on logging and road-building in the Tongass, something the Biden administration later reversed.
Trump in January called for reverting to the policy from his first term as part of an Alaska-specific executive order aimed at boosting oil and gas development, mining and logging in the state.
The Tongass is a temperate rainforest of glaciers and rugged coastal islands. It provides habitat to wildlife such as bears, wolves, salmon and bald eagles.
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Bohrer reported from Juneau, Alaska. Mead Gruver in Cheyenne, Wyoming, Matthew Daly in Washington, D.C., and Matthew Brown in Helena, Montana, contributed to this report.
Governors’ report outlines how western states, territories could build more affordable housing – Austin Fisher, Source New Mexico
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham joined leaders from other western states and U.S. territories Monday in publishing a report that proposes government solutions to make housing more affordable across the region.
A group of bipartisan governors joined Lujan Grisham for the opening news conference of the annual Western Governors’ Association in Santa Fe.
As the organization’s chair, Lujan Grisham has for the past year led its push to expand lower-cost options for places to live.
The report offers fixes for what it says are zoning and land use laws that impede housing development, slow and complicated permitting systems, not enough financing tools for affordable housing, high home prices and too few construction workers.
During the news conference, Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, called the report a roadmap for how western state governments can catch up on building workforce and affordable housing, including using public lands.
She pointed to state-owned land at the state fairgrounds in Albuquerque, where New Mexico is “moments away” from announcing the results of a competitive bidding process for hiring a master planner who will oversee multi-use development there.
“We are looking at moving the fair and redeveloping a brand new revitalized housing and community neighborhood initiative there,” Lujan Grisham said. In April, she signed legislation giving state officials authority to issue hundreds of millions of dollars in bonds and take other steps to develop the land.
Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon, a Republican and the association’s immediate past chair, said issues like housing, water and fire resource management have come to the fore with many people moving to the West.
When the states and the federal government come together, Gordon said, “there really are no problems that we can’t successfully address.”
South Dakota’s Republican Gov. Larry Rhoden said he’s impressed with the reception governors have received from the second Trump administration, however, he believes the country’s problems will not be solved in Washington but rather by state governments.
“I’ve been encouraged that we’ve got cabinet secretaries in place, a number of them that are very willing to work with the governors to find solutions,” Rhoden said.
Several Trump-appointed leaders are scheduled to speak to Western Governors’ Association this week.
When asked about the proposal in Congress for some public lands to at least be nominated to be sold and used for housing, Lujan Grisham said the notion that we don’t need any public lands is likely to be a “non-starter” in New Mexico.
“The process that has been described so far is a problem for a state like New Mexico wherein our public lands, we have a very strong relationship with the openness and they belong to all of us,” Lujan Grisham said. “And selling that to the private sector without a process, without putting New Mexicans first, is, at least for me as a governor, going to be problematic.”
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said he hopes the federal government includes states in a search for federal land that could be used for housing or other uses.
“Coloradans really treasure our access, and it would be a devastating blow to the quality of life, as well as to our economy, if areas were fenced off and the public was denied access,” said Polis, a Democrat.
One of the recommendations in the WGA’s housing report is for Congress to consider legislation to allow agencies beyond the U.S. Forest Service to lease some federal lands for affordable housing used by federal workers and local communities.
“With the concentration of federal lands in the West, leveraging certain parcels for responsible housing development is an additional strategy to address affordable housing shortages,” the report states.
Lovelace Health System CEO resigns amid ongoing turnover in top role – Hannah Garcia, Albuquerque Journal
Lovelace Health System CEO and President Troy Greer has resigned, officials announced last week, the latest in a string of departures for the top position at one of the state’s largest health systems.
Lovelace declined to comment on why Greer resigned. Greer, who held the top role at Lovelace for two years, is the latest in a series of early departures from the CEO and president position — including his predecessor David Schultz, who left at the end of 2023 after less than a year on the job.
Greer is being replaced in the interim by Lovelace Medical Group CEO Michael Kueker, while health system officials conduct a national search to permanently fill the position.
“We are grateful for Troy’s leadership over the past two years, during which Lovelace has continued to evolve to better serve communities across New Mexico,” Lovelace Chief Medical Officer Vesta Sandoval said in a statement.
Since 2022, the health system has cycled through four CEOs, including Greer, Schultz and Janelle Raborn, who worked with the company for four decades but retired in 2022 — the same year she was appointed. Ron Stern held the position of CEO from 2005 through 2022.
Greer came to Lovelace to take the top position after serving as the CEO of Boone Health in Columbia from September 2020 to April 2023, according to previous Journal reporting. He also worked for many years with Lovelace before that, including as CEO of Lovelace Westside Hospital from 2007 to 2012 and Lovelace Medical Center and Heart Hospital of New Mexico from 2012 to 2020.
Kueker, the interim CEO and president of the health system, joined Lovelace in 2023 after previously serving as vice president of physician practice operations at Tennessee-based Community Health Systems. Kueker’s role as the top executive of Lovelace will include more responsibilities, as the health system oversees five hospitals, dozens of clinics and more than 3,500 employees.
“With Michael’s leadership, we are confident the Lovelace team will continue building on this progress to meet the diverse healthcare needs of our region,” Sandoval said.